“It’s a bubble!” she continued, warming to her rant. “It’s stuck in a 1950s timewarp and it’s all so twee. Do you know what I read in a science PACE earlier? There was a lesson about the first heart transplant, and then it said have you had your heart transplanted by Jesus?“

Seeing my mum rant about ACE might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen; if I could capture her on a podcast I’d blast the Pod Delusion into next week. But she’s got a point. What is staggering about ACE is not the creationism or the conservatism – everyone knows fundamentalists believe that. It’s the fact that it’s just so obviously rubbish, and yet, in the UK at least, school inspectors seem to let this pass without comment.

The most obvious way ACE is crap is in its multiple choice questions (of which there are thousands). Here, for your general amusement, are some I found yesterday. I make no claim that these are the best (or worst) of it. They’re just a few I dug up in a cursory jaunt through the PACEs I have. I could go on much, much longer.

Maybe we have a mischievious undercover atheist on whatever committee comes up with paradoxical names like “Accelerated Christian Education”, which is laughably neither “accelerated” nor even “education”. Ditto “Intelligent Design” and “Christian Science”. Juxtaposition has never seemed so funny. Or depressing.

Maybe we have a mischievious undercover atheist on whatever committee comes up with paradoxical names like “Accelerated Christian Education”, which is laughably neither “accelerated” nor even “education”. Ditto “Intelligent Design” and “Christian Science”. Juxtaposition has never seemed so funny. Or depressing.

And there’s silly old me thinking wisdom is a kind of tooth. I think even Amish children would find these questions insulting and dog knows they get taught three fifths of bugger all about anything other than reading, writing and the bible.

Poor kids.It’s also scary to think of all these kids growing up and having “quivers full” of kids who will be “educated” in a similar way. Not acceptable. PACEs need to be thrown into an enormous,roaring, cleansing bonfire.

I see nothing wrong with this,in fact I find intensely encouraging.These kids will come out of their schools,buy bull colleges,Jerry Falwell universities etc., knowing as we would say in the U.K.three fifth of Fuck All.Let’s see what sort of work they are qualified to do!

What’s the point in having an education system if you’re just going to teach crap? Michael Gove (the UK Minister for Education) needs to get a grip and put a stop to this nonsense that’s rotting our kids’ brains.

Maybe we have a mischievious undercover atheist on whatever committee comes up with paradoxical names like “Accelerated Christian Education”, which is laughably neither “accelerated” nor even “education”.